On June 28, Emperor performed at Hellfest 2024 in Clisson, France. A professional livestream video of the entire show (courtesy of ARTE Concert) can be viewed below.
Setlist:
“Into the infinity of thoughts”
“In the wordless chamber”
“Thus spoke the Night Spirit”
“The Loss and the Curse of Awe”
“I burn with strength”
“The burning shadows of silence”
“I am the black wizard”
“I am not Satan”
“Your Empire of Delight”
Earlier this year, Emperor legend Ihsahn released his new eponymous studio album via Candlelight Records. Ihsahn’s latest release dares to push the boundaries of creative expression even further with his eighth studio album. It consists of two melodically linked versions of the same album: a prog-metal version, a fully symphonic version, both of which represent a cinematic-inspired masterpiece.
While his musical journey has often been revelatory, the masterful control of rhythm and movement heard on Ihsahn showcases his work as a songwriter and composer at its most focused and confident. A gargantuan undertaking, and one that Ihsahn describes as one of the most complex projects he has ever undertaken, it is a labyrinthine rabbit hole of his own design, the scale of the ambition immediately apparent. He produced and scored the album entirely himself over the course of three years. The metal version was mixed by Jens Bogren, the orchestral version by Joel Dollié, and both versions were mastered by Tony Lindgren. Ihsahn freely admits the process pushed him to his limits. It started simply enough, with a piano.
Ihsahn comments: “Since I was 16, I’ve released a full album every two years on average. And that’s given me the opportunity to try out different options. So for my eighth solo album, I thought, ‘Okay, how can I do what I do best while also raising the bar tenfold?’ At the core of what I do is black metal, extremely distorted guitars and screaming, but since the first Emperor recordings you can hear the keyboard parts influenced by classic soundtracks by people like Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, John Carpenter and so on. So I approached the writing with the intention of presenting the material in its fully developed metal form, but also arranging the orchestral parts so that they work independently. Kind of an attempt to write a soundtrack within the structures of the overall production, allowing me to explore different and sometimes contrasting variations on essentially the same music. In the end, I wrote all the music as a piano score and arranged it accordingly for a typical band ensemble and orchestra, making sure that everything fits together.”
It’s this compositional core that allowed Ihsahn to develop the two records from scratch – a herculean feat for the self-professed, self-taught musician, but perhaps it’s precisely this lack of formal training that allowed him to throw the rule book out the window and simply follow his instincts, and the time afforded by the pandemic created the natural gap required to invest himself so heavily in the project. As Ihsahn explains, this self-imposed pressure arose from a desire to maintain his loyal fanbase and self-interest, which is not only the defining feature of his latest record, but also the central feature of his entire solo career.
You can order the new album here.
Song list:
“Venator Deer”
“The Promethean Spark”
“Pilgrimage into oblivion”
“Born twice”
“A taste of ambrosia”
“Extraneous Animals”
“Blood Traces for Love”
“Hubris and blue devils”
“The distance between us”
“At the heart of all broken things”
“Sonata Profana”
Video “The Distance Between Us”:
Video for “Born Twice”:
Video “Pilgrimage into Oblivion”:
On this album, Tobias Ørnes Andersen and Tobias Solbakk join Ihsahn on drums and percussion, while IHSAHN’s son Angell Solberg Tveitan contributes additional percussion and violins by Chris Baum. The artwork for the album was created by Ritxi Ostariz, and all promotional photos are by Andy Ford.
It’s not enough for him to just produce a double record, because there’s also a conceptual story underlying both sides of “Ihsahn” – a pair of separate but interwoven Wagnerian tales that revolve around the traditional hero’s journey. And while IHSAHN is hesitant to tell it all, he’s confident that meaning will soon emerge for listeners willing to make the same commitment.
“I’ve had the honor of collaborating with some amazing visual artists, all of whom have been given access to my scrapbooks, music, lyrics, stories, mood boards, etc. It’s been amazing to see how they’ve all interpreted the material differently, but still in a way that ties it all together.
“It’s a privilege that I get to make music and travel the world to play my music. And when I say that subjectively this is my greatest musical achievement to date, it’s nothing to do with ego or prestige, but more with gratitude for the experience. Art taps into the metaphysical and the archetypes of our existence – it lets us experience loss, death, love – it prepares us in some ways for all of these things. That’s the value, that’s the perspective I want to create from.”
